Burris Butler
That a genuine spiritual revival is the greatest need of our generation is generally agreed among Christian thinkers. But the unanswered question is, “When and how will such a revival come?”
A real revival with permanent effects can neither be “worked up” nor “handed down.” The lifeless mechanics of organization alone lack sufficient motivating power. Too often the effects of mass religious emotionalism have been dissipated as the stimuli which produced it were removed. The one case is a dry river bed without a stream; the other is a flash flood of religious emotion without a channel. We believe the Lord himself has provided both the channel and the stream, if we are willing to use them.
It is our sincere conviction that a genuine Christian revival in our generation must begin with and be channeled through the local church. There is sufficient “approved apostolic precedent” for this conviction. It is through the local congregation and its individual members that God ministers His gospel to mankind. It is in this mystical body of Christ that God meets His people in a saving covenant relationship.
The responsibility for beginning this needed revival lies heavily upon the genuinely consecrated individuals in every local church. It is only those persons who are in contact with God through prayer and His Word who are acquainted alike with the need and its solution.
A heavy responsibility lies upon the ministry. There is no room in the ministry for time-serving and place-seeking while the world goes to hell. The eldership of the local church shares the responsibility. The elders are sorely to blame if they allow their congregations to be lulled to sleep with the soothing syrup of pious platitudes or to be poisoned with false doctrines. Elders, ministers, and consecrated church members must join in calling the church back to its divinely appointed mission and message.
Such a revival as we are pleading for must begin in prayer. History records that every sweeping revival began in a prayer meeting. “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” There must be a revival of prayer in our local churches—private prayer, family prayer, neighborhood prayer meetings, congregational prayer meetings. Too often we attempt to plan when we ought first to pray.
There must be a revival of repentance. “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have walked every one in his own way.” This is true of our generation. It is largely true of the church in our generation. Coupled with sincere soul searching and repentance must be the desire to see the fruit of the Spirit produced in our lives.
We need a return to real Bible study. The chief reason why modernism, ecclesiasticism, worldliness, and other forms of sin have made such inroads upon the local church is that we have ceased to be the people of the Book. “Where the Scriptures speak” we are too often silent because we have not taken the trouble to find out what they say. “Where the Scriptures are silent” we too often speak because our ignorance of the Word has led us to confuse opinions and faith. Revival will break out when once again “Christians only” are able to give a reason for the hope that is in them.
There must be a return to Christian zeal to win others to Christ. The lethargy of Laodicean lukewarmness must be thrown off and no longer allowed to paralyze the church. The revival will be on its way when we undertake in our local congregations day-by-day and house-to-house evangelism, not for the sake of numbers added, but for the sake of souls saved from eternal hell to eternal life, for the sake of restored homes and happy children, for the sake of a vital church, a decent community, and a world leavened by genuine New Testament Christianity.
No people should be so well fitted to bring about a real generation-saving revival as the preachers, churches, and individual Christians who are committed to the original Christian message that shook the Roman empire from Babylon to Spain. The ancient gospel has the power to save today’s world, if we are willing to pay the price for its delivery. All the mechanics and organization we need are in the local church built “according to the pattern.” Let every such church respond to the will of its head, yield to the promptings of the Holy Spirit that inhabits it, and do its work in its place as the body of Christ.
Burris Butler (1909-1982) served as the eighth editor of the Christian Standard, from 1944-1971. This article was published as an editorial in the May 25, 1957, edition of the Christian Standard.
This article is so good, and so relevant. How powerfully the church of today needs to rely upon the Holy Spirit, but also to risk sharing the everlasting freedom of the gospel. . . and our risk is nothing compared to those who have gone before us. Thanks.
The way things are going in the world today, particularly in Israel makes me wonder if the tribulation period is very close.
This in turn brings to mind Luke 18:8.
However, we all are charged with bringing the good news of the gospel to people we come into contact with.
If we did this would we need a
“revival?”